1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a melody generating means responsive to vapor pressure and more particularly, to an apparatus primarily for attachment to the spout of a teakettle to signal the boiling of the water contained in the kettle by means of a melodious tune of virtually any complexity.
2. Prior Art
It is well-known that it is desirable to provide in a teakettle a means for signaling the boiling of water therein when the teakettle has been subjected to appropriate heat for a sufficient length of time. Such signaling devices typically comprise whistling devices which respond mechanically to the passage of high pressure steam through an aperture by creating a high pitch, shrill, whistle sound. Unfortunately, such whistle sounds are often unpleasantly high pitched and loud and therefore, extremely annoying.
Some attempts have been made in the prior art to improve upon the traditional teakettle whistle device. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,630,776 to Lewis a teakettle device utilizes a plurality of different gauge reeds which vibrate at different frequencies in response to varying steam pressure to produce a chord of three notes. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,811,853 to Landman a kettle alarm is disclosed in which the pitch of the whistle can be varied by manually raising or lowering a portion of the structure. U.S. Pat. No. 3,916,818 to Barr et al discloses a steam whistle having two different pitches depending upon the steam pressure. U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,349 to Hudson discloses a variable intensity whistle in which the structure provides means for varying the offset of the apertures through which the steam flows in order to allow the user to manually change the intensity of the whistle of the kettle.
Unfortunately, none of the prior art known to the applicants discloses a teakettle device which responds to the steam pressure of boiling water by actually playing a tune, a melody, a song of any complexity of sufficient volume to alert the kettle user of the boiling condition of the water contained within the kettle and in a much more pleasant and attractive manner.